Bloomfield opinion: When literature explained everything

I was an English major in college. While I had friends outside the department, I never really understood why anyone would choose to study business or elementary education. Those subjects seemed somehow less noble and interesting than literature.

Of course, I was ridiculously young and stupid then. I hitchhiked and attended frat parties. I once rode my bike halfway to Princeton with my eyes closed. The wisdom of great literature did not make me an adult. It took real life to do that.

In Laurie Frankel's "The Atlas of Love," three graduate students study literature and learn about life. They discover the power of many different kinds of love. Real life forces them to grow up.

Jill, the only child of a single mother; Katie, a devout Mormon; and Janey, a Canadian from a close family; become friends at a Seattle university. While working on their dissertations, the three young women teach undergraduate classes.

When Jill becomes pregnant and her boyfriend leaves, the three rent a house so they can share expenses and childcare. They work around their teaching schedules, their research and their social lives. All three are English majors. They are firm believers in the importance of literature.

"Part of dedicating your life to studying literature is realizing that storytelling is more than just make-believe and that make-believe is far more important than we all pretend it is. One way or another, books tell the stories of their readers."

During the course of one year, Jill gives birth to a son and Katie searches for the perfect husband. Janey, the "unreliable narrator," seems the most practical of the three. She works hard at teaching, cooks all the meals and helps care for baby Atlas.

Much of the book's humor comes from Janey's inability to understand just how young and immature she is. Like most people her age, Janey remains convinced that her chosen field is special. She bounces this idea off a history major with no idea that he finds her amusing.

"Just because fiction is made up, doesn't mean it isn't true. We learn nothing from history. Fiction is much truer than history. History is about other people. Fiction is about you."

With two of Katie's boyfriends and a gay couple, the three young women form a nontraditional extended family. Both Jill's mother and Janey's grandmother accept that Atlas has three mothers. The "family" works until something happens to stress the bonds of love and trust.

Suddenly, Janey, the selfless one, does something nearly unimaginable. She has been working harder than usual and is still grieving an important loss. Her actions change all their lives. Although Janey is clueless about her motivations, she uses the filter of literature to explain larger issues. Sometimes she gets it right.

"We know that the narrator isn't going to tell about the summer when nothing happened; the narrator is going to tell about the summer when everything happened, when everything changed. In the end, maybe it's that one word – change – that is the point of the novel."

"The Atlas of Love" made me laugh and cry. It reminded me of a time when I believed that literature explained everything and a baby could be the solution to any problem. I miss those days.